Shakedown Cruise
by clair beaubien
Summary: Tag to ELAC. The car is all back to rights and Dean wants to take her out for her first trip, and he wants Sam to go with him. That takes a little convincing.


The closer I got to finishing the car, the farther away from it Sam stayed. After – after the killer clown, and Sam saying how guilty he felt about Dad, and me beating the hell into the trunk of the car, after all that, Sam stayed away. Maybe from me as much as from the car. Maybe we needed the distance. The _relative_ distance, since we were really never farther away from each other than the width of Bobby's yard.

Sometimes I'd see Sam looking out a mostly hidden window, taking an awkward view of the car and how it was coming along. I never made a big deal out of it, never called him on it, or invited him out. I know Sam, I knew what he needed then was someplace to be quiet and process everything, and not be reminded every single minute, or even every single hour, what had happened. I even stopped talking about the car with Bobby whenever Sam around because Sam would only get up and leave when I did.

I knew - the more the car looked like her old self, the more Sam could see that night and that accident that _had_ to be his fault, he just knew it. So I let him alone because I knew he needed it. And because I knew what he was going to need when it was time for him to get over it.

The minute the car was all done, in mint condition, washed and waxed within an inch of her life, I went into the house to find Sam. He was in the study.

"C'mon."

"What?" He looked up from the book he had on the desk in front of him. The bruises on his face had finally healed. "Where?"

I twirled the car keys around my finger.

"She's all done. Time for the shakedown cruise."

"Oh. Uh. I – no. No. That's all right. You go on and – and – have fun." He pulled his hands into his lap and looked like he was actually trying to make himself smaller in the chair. Like maybe I wouldn't see him then?

"Nope, you have to come with or it doesn't count. You were in the car with me the first time I ever drove it by myself. Remember? I drove you around for your birthday."

"I hate to disappoint you Dean, but I really don't remember much from my _fourth_ _birthday_."

"You remember enough to remember which birthday it was." I pointed out. "C'mon. We can even stop and get that ice cream I promised you back then."

He gave me his '_have_ _you ever thought about growing up_?' look, but at least it wasn't the scared look he'd had just a second ago. He needed to get back into the car. The longer he waited, the longer I _let_ him wait, the harder it was going to be for him. The harder it was going to be for me to get him back in.

"All right, forget the ice cream. Pizza and a beer. C'mon." I twirled the keys again and gave him my best '_I really REALLY need my little brother with me for this. Pleeeeease_.' That was the look I used to use when I wanted to do something Dad wouldn't like and I wanted Sam along to share the blame. And the look always made Sam cave. Every single time. You'd think he'd learn.

"All right." He sighed.

Guess we'll leave learning _that_ lesson for another day.

"Great, let's go." I turned and he followed me out to the car where I tossed him the _real_ surprise – the car keys. He caught them, but his eyes got as wide as I've ever seen them. And considering the things we've seen in our lives, that's saying a lot.

"_No._"

"Sam -."

"Dean – _no."_ He walked up to me and past me toward the house and shoved the keys into my hand. I grabbed his arm and made him stop. He raised his hand almost like he was going to make a fist and plug me a good one, but he only pushed my hand off of him. "_I can't."_

"_You have to. _Sammy, you have to get into that car eventually and the longer we wait, the harder it'll be. _"_

"_Not to drive_." He told me. His breath was coming fast. "I'm not gonna drive."

"Yeah, you are." I held the keys out again, dangling them from the tip of my finger. "It's only gonna get bigger and scarier the longer you wait. You need to be _able_ to do it before you need to do it _period_."

I was right and he knew it and that always makes him mad. He grabbed the keys back from me and stomped around the car and shoved the seat back hard so he could fit his legs in and then just for good measure gave the door a slam shut that made my teeth hurt. But I wasn't going to say anything and give him the argument he wanted me to start so that he could get out of this. I got in the passenger side and waited.

The key went into the ignition, his hands went on the wheel, but before he started it up, he looked over at me. Well, not at _me. _He was looking where I was sitting but I knew he was looking at Dad. Even though it wasn't the accident that killed him, I knew Sam was thinking, '_that's where Dad died.'_

"C'mon. We can do this." I said.

He nodded and blinked a lot and turned the key and we pulled out of Bobby's driveway onto the county road.

I expected Sam to be hypercautious, constantly checking his mirrors and his speed limit and the potential for any other traffic. Instead, he kept his eyes fixed on the road straight ahead and his hands tight on the wheel. He did okay for the first five miles or so. No running stop signs. No speeding past Sheriff's cars. No PTSD. Maybe going ten miles under the speed limit, but that was OK, we weren't in a hurry.

Then the speedometer needle started creeping ominously higher and higher and Sam's hands got tighter on the wheel and he didn't seem to be looking at the road so much as trying to see through it.

"Sam – slow down." I didn't think he was doing it on purpose; I wondered if he was zoning out. "C'mon. Ease up on the gas."

"What?" He looked over at me like he had no idea what I was talking about. Like he was going to be surprised to realize that he was driving.

"_Slow down._"

Sure enough, he looked back to the road and hit the brakes even though the next stop sign was at least two hundred feet away. A car coming up behind us laid on the horn and blew past and Sam flinched and ducked his head away from it like he was expecting to get hit. He was shaking.

"Just pull over to the shoulder. Okay? Sam? Just – get us off the road."

He kind of nodded, barely raised his head, and slid us over to the wide gravel shoulder of the road. He didn't let go of the wheel.

"It's OK, Sam. We're OK."

"No we're not." He said, slow and accusing. "Not _all_ of us." Accusing himself; '_this is how Dad died…'_

"Dad didn't die in this car, Sam."

"He was sitting there. I was talking to him and then –." He splayed his fingers up and out like an explosion. "It was just – just - ."

"Sam -."

But Sam looked around like he was realizing _again_ that he was behind the wheel of the car.

"Oh God – Dean – what – I didn't – I didn't mean to – did I hit something?"

"No. You didn't hit anything." I tried to reassure him. "We're just out driving, remember? Shakedown cruise?"

I gave him my '_give me an answer so I at least know you're coherent'_ look.

"Yeah. Yeah." He got the message. "Pizza and beer. Yeah, I remember." He gripped his hands around the wheel again but didn't make any move to get us underway.

"Were you scared when you drove the car that first time?" He asked me.

"I was more scared when I saw Dad was watching us."

"He didn't even care. He even seemed proud of you for trying it."

"Well, we _were_ only making circles around Pastor Jim's parking lot. And it was a Saturday, not much going on at the church that morning."

"You remember what day it was?" Sam asked.

"Yeah. You were born on a Monday, and '84 was Leap Year, so –." I counted off my fingers to no real purpose other than show. "Yeah. Your fourth birthday was on a Saturday."

There was a shift in his expression, sort of a '_hunh'_ crossed with a '_wow'_, but we still didn't move.

"I'm scared." He said, mostly to the steering wheel though.

"You can do this. Just up to the pizza place. _You can do this."_

"No – no, it's not – not the driving."

"Scared of what then?" I asked since he wasn't elaborating.

"_Scared of going back out into a world that doesn't have Dad in it_."

Well, he wasn't the only one scared of that, now was he? What could I say? Point out _again_ how they were at odds so often they could've worked in Vegas? Remind Sam how he walked away from Dad to go to college? Pick out all the little moments that Sam had said or acted or implied that he was happier the farther away he was from Dad? Refresh his memory how often Dad _hadn't_ been there all this past year?

"You know – we got through the killer clown not so bad." I said. "It's just gonna have to be one job at a time. We just – we do our best like always. That much hasn't changed."

"Yeah."

Wow, he sounded enthused.

"C'mon." I prodded him after another minute of not going anywhere had passed. I decided to appeal to the need to please Dad he'd recently developed. "Dad's still watching us like he's always been, and sitting by the side of the road isn't where he wants us to be." I decided to drive the point home. "He doesn't want us driving circles in a parking lot either. _He's_ still on the road like he's always been and we're not gonna find him sitting here."

"Yeah, I know." Sam's voice sounded soft and strangled. After another minute, he put the car in gear and we got back on the road.

The End.


End file.
